


Could've Been Me

by DotyTakeThisDown



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Spoilers, slight divergence from canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:44:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20824280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DotyTakeThisDown/pseuds/DotyTakeThisDown
Summary: A slight reimagining of a scene from Episode 77. Essik and Caleb react to the meeting with the Scourger.





	Could've Been Me

**Author's Note:**

> Listening to Episode 77, I knew that I had to write this. It's basically a rewrite of the post-Scourger magic lesson, if Jester hadn't decided to stay. I'm just in so deep for these two, you guys.

A dark cell. The clanging of chains. The smell of sweat and blood and urine hanging thick as fog in the air. Sharp pain in his neck, the hot pour of his own blood. The sight of Essek with one hand raised out of his cloak, crushing the Scourger’s throat without even touching her.

Power emanated off of him, then, and Caleb was struck with the knowledge that this man was the Shadowhand, trusted follower of the Bright Queen, revered member of the Dynasty.

This is what lingers in the back of his mind as they make their way home. It’s cold, this eternal night, and Caleb gathers his new coat a little tighter around him. The blood drying against his neck and chest raises a chill on his skin.

_This man has a thousand things he could be doing with his time,_ Caleb thinks as Essek teaches him new spells, _but he’s here, with me._

He’s not sure he deserves it, is never sure he deserves anything more than the execution he just witnessed. _That could’ve been me. Maybe it still should be._

“Your mind is elsewhere,” Essek says, as Caleb finishes jotting down his notes to transcribe into his spellbook later. “This afternoon did not go as you had planned, did it?”

“No. Yes.” Caleb tucks the parchment away. There hadn’t been time to clean up, between returning home to the Xhorhaus and Essek agreeing to teach him more. He wants to change clothes, wants to wash the blood away, but he doesn’t move from his chair. “I’m not sure this conversation could’ve gone any other way.”

Essek’s gaze shifts away. His expression on anyone else might be considered awkward. On him, it looks merely contemplative. “For a moment, I thought she’d killed you. I never would’ve forgiven myself for that.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Caleb stands, filled with the sudden urge to pace. The library, so comforting and spacious normally, feels like a cage. “I should never have given her chance. I know what they’re like.”

“So do I.” Essek’s voice is as cold as the white dragon’s lair. “I arranged the meeting. It was my responsibility to keep you safe.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know.” Essek looks up, his blue eyes piercing Caleb’s and holding him in place. “You’re not like her, you know.”

Caleb chokes down a laugh and his chest burns. “Am I not?”

“No.” Essek sweeps to his feet. His expression is soft in a way that seems almost vulnerable, like he’s confessing his deepest thoughts instead of Caleb’s. “She never would’ve given the Beacon back to my people.”

Caleb doesn’t know how to say that his only thought in that moment had been to save his own skin, to save his friends, to do whatever it took to avoid ending up the one in chains. Giving up the Beacon had been a far cry from selfless.

“It was the only choice,” he says, because it’s true.

Essek’s hand emerges from under the cloak, stretched toward Caleb. He hardly dares to breathe, remembering the Scourger’s throat constricting under the power of that hand. Essek moves closer, his hand coming to rest on Caleb’s neck, where the wound had been. The skin is healed over now, barely a scar left behind as a memento. The only sign of how close he’d come to death’s door is the blood still staining his collar.

“I don’t know what I would have done,” Essek says, like it scares him to admit, “if she’d killed you.”

“Caduceus and Jester would never let me die.” Caleb’s pulse flutters like a butterfly. He isn’t sure what to do with his eyes, his hands. His gaze darts down to the smooth curve of Essek’s lips and that’s no help at all.

“That may be true.” Essek’s thumb presses against his skin, just enough that there can be no doubt that he feels every thud of Caleb’s heart. “The point still stands.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” The joke falls flat in the air. His voice is too constricted, too afraid. He’s spent so much time hiding from Trent and the rest of the Assembly, and now he might be about to march straight into their midst. Not to mention the constant distant threat of Obann and the Laughing Hand and the mysterious Angel of Irons. None of them really know what they’re about to face, what they could lose before the end.

“Oh, Caleb,” Essek says, and Caleb doesn’t have time to register the velvet sweetness of his own name on the Shadowhand’s tongue before they’re kissing.

It’s soft, almost tentative, and Caleb feels like they’re both floating off the ground. All he can do is to try to keep up as Essek’s lips brush across his own, guiding him the same way he does when they’re practicing magic together.

Caleb lifts his hand, fisting his fingers in the thick material of Essek’s cloak at his shoulder. He can feel the ripple of muscle underneath. Caleb’s tongue traces Essek’s bottom lip, gentle and cautious, and the drow practically shivers beneath the touch.

Essek spends all of his time at arm’s length from the world—using his power rather than his bare hands to kill the Scourger, hiding his body beneath a thick cloak, traveling so that even his feet doesn’t touch the ground. Caleb feels dizzy with the knowledge that the Shadowhand is touching, kissing, him now.

Caleb sucks in a breath as they break apart. A laugh slips between his lips. “I think we’re more than friends now.”

Essek raises an eyebrow at him but his smile is amused. “Be careful out there,” he says. “I wouldn’t want this to be our first and last kiss.”

“I’ll be fine,” Caleb says, and for once he thinks he might actually mean it. “I have my friends. You be careful too.”

“I’m always careful.” Essek rubs his thumb over Caleb’s blood-soaked collar before withdrawing his hand back beneath the cloak. “Next time, I think I want to see more of what you’ve learned.”

Caleb is left to do nothing more than stare after him as he sweeps from the room.


End file.
